Parks and Recreation Watch: Season 5, Episode 3 - How A Bill Becomes A Law

Parks & Rec sets up a few more relationships for the season with idle plot developments, but plenty of laughs.

Leslie has another bill on the city council docket, this time to help the local swim team The Porpoises, but a conniving Councilman Jamm stands in her way. He wants to poop in her office bathroom, Leslie obviously doesn't want him anywhere near it and we again get to see more of the sacrifices Leslie must make to play the political game. Jamm is a great adversary to Leslie and she and Tom bond over trying to out maneuver him. Tom and Leslie try and get their third vote by going to an older councilman and the resulting conversations are quite great. Random and borderline racist, the councilman has plenty of hilarious moments and his come-ons to Leslie keeps the laughs coming. I do wish Tom had a little more to do this week, but Aziz Ansari did a great job of letting Poehler bounce off him to great effect. Leslie gets her bill through, but she sacrifices her cushy office for Jamm's vote; who at least can drop off the kids at the pool in peace.

Chris, in the meanwhile, has set up a 311 help line for city hall and Ron and Andy end up filling a pot hole themselves when the appropriate department never picked up the phone. The relationship we get here is not Andy and Ron, their weird father/son dynamic is still going strong, but Ron and a local citizen who seem to be hitting it off in a hurry. Lucy Lawless plays said citizen who keeps interrupting the duo as Andy and eventually Ron, play princess with her daughters.

There is obviously a connection between Ron and the mother, but when she makes fun of Ronís makeup, Ron storms off in a huff. The pothole is easy work, but Ron can't quite sweep the little princesses' Mom off her feet. Andy won't let love simply slip through Ronís fingers and he sweetly reconnects the two with a little note on the plot hole for the mother. Lawless ends up paying Ron a visit and asking him out and we have some serious romantic potential between the two. I enjoyed the chemistry between Offerman and Lucy Lawless and it will be interesting to see how long they keep this romance alive. A highlight of the episode was obviously seeing Ron Swanson in princess make up, but Chris Pratt was constantly stealing scenes, per usual, with his many Andy-isms. I am also convinced we need more Andy interactions with little kids as there was some comic gold between Pratt and those little girls.

Lastly we had Ben and April going on a road trip back to Pawnee but they only made it 40 feet. Getting stuck in their parking garage, the duo spends most of the episode weirding each other out. Ultimately their experience builds a stronger kinship between the two, but I am not really sure they showed us that. We mostly go through a laundry lists of embarrassments for Ben, musical taste to screenplay hobbies, and April doesn't think all that much of just about anything Ben does. They do more telling than showing when it comes to these two bonding, but by the end of the episode we still feel their bond has grown stronger. The gas tank going empty, stranding them in D.C. was the obvious gag one would expect, but Ben's gesture to buy April's plane ticket goes a long way to show their strengthening brother/sister relationship. Plaza and Scott are able to sell us on the change and they continue to prove to be quite a comedic team.

No Anne and barely any Chris this week was hardly noticed as the episode was full of laughs. Not a whole lot of movement on the plot this week, but a lot of new faces and new bonds will surely help the season move forward. Jamm should be a great reoccurring foil for Knope while Lawless and Swanson could be potential gold as a romantic pair; how long before we see that red polo? Solid Parks & Rec this week, let's see if everyone is back in Pawnee next week.